PM Modi to address NDA parliamentary meeting today

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the BJP-led NDA parliamentary party meeting on Tuesday, a get-together of the ruling alliance's MPs which is being held after a considerable gap.

The NDA meeting comes a couple of days before the filing of nomination for the vice president's election begins on August 7. The NDA will have to announce its candidate, whose election will be a certainty due to the alliance's majority in the electoral college, by August 21, the last date of nomination-filing and the Monsoon session of Parliament.

The meeting comes in the middle of the Parliament session which has been all but a washout so far, except for a two-day discussion on the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, due to a united opposition's ceaseless protests against the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar by the Election Commission.

PM Modi is expected to speak on a host of current issues as the opposition has been raising the heat over the poll body's alleged partisan conduct favouring the government, and the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor.

The prime minister is also likely to be felicitated by the parliamentary party over his government's military response to the terror strike.

The electoral college for the vice president poll includes MPs of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha and its current strength is 782. If the opposition also names a candidate, a distinct possibility, then the poll is scheduled to be held on September 9.

Sources said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju and a few BJP national general secretaries are likely to be coordinating with allies for the vice presidential poll.

Since the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP lost its majority but comfortably crossed the halfway mark with allies, the sessional meeting of the party's MPs was expanded to include its allies. PM Modi addressed the first such meeting on July 2.

However, no meeting has been held in the last few sessions.

Before the last general elections, he used to address weekly meetings of the BJP parliamentary party, now expanded to include the party's allies such as TDP, JD(U), and LJP (Ram Vilas).

The meeting is attended by MPs of the ruling alliance and PM Modi often covers a sweep of political and governance issues, at times touching on the government agenda in Parliament.

He often offers to the MPs talking points to be raised in public, especially in their constituencies.